Let’s play a few rounds of fact or fiction:

1. The game has passed Kyle Whittingham by.

2. It’s time for him to retire.

Wait. We’re just getting started here.

3. The quarterback, Devon Dampier, is too short, he bloops too many passes, and he relies on his legs too much.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes quarterback Devon Dampier (4) prepares to hand off the ball against the Texas Tech Red Raiders during the game in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025.

4. The offensive line, which Whittingham has praised all the day long as the best he’s ever had, is nowhere near as good as that.

5. The Utes are so short on playmakers that they have to rely on defensive players to fill roles and plug holes on attack they should not be counted on to fill and plug.

6. The defense is pretty good, although when it’s depended on too heavily to shut down quality opponents in order to win games, it gets fatigued and then gets punched out late, as happened against Texas Tech when the visitors rolled for multiple fourth-quarter touchdowns to win by 24 points.

7. The Utes are going to repeat this season what happened to them, what they allowed to happen to them, last season.

8. Those first three wins were not what they seemed to be.

9. When a Big 12 opponent comes into Rice-Eccles, with a crowd psyched out of its mind backing the Utes, with national television cameras focused on them, talking them up as though they are headed straight for the College Football Playoff, prematurely crowning them “the best team in the league,” and then they play the way they did, it says Utah football is a shadow of its former self.

10. The Utes will bounce back and end up in the Big 12 championship game.

Let’s hold it right there, tally up the F’s versus the F’s, and back up for a minute to consider their meaning.

We’ll wait. Your answers are your own. But, as true advocates of the First Amendment, nobody’s going to curb your freedom to think and speak as you will. Have at it.

OK, here’s the way I see it.

Foes and friends of Utah football, some of them, are going berserk over what happened against Texas Tech on Saturday. As overblown as the Utes’ success might have been before that defeat, the declarations of their demise have been equally hyperbolic in the aftermath.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes tackle Texas Tech Red Raiders wide receiver Reggie Virgil (1) during the game in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025.

I get it. It’s easy to do. Darn near everyone, present company included, jumped in on varying levels of criticism following that performance. It was lousy. The Utes’ offense was horrible, getting nearly doubled up in yardage gained, being unable to throw the ball, to run it and to score it. That about covers it. Oh, and there was this little bonus: The turnovers were as embarrassing for the Utes as they were devastating.

Some of the complaints above have bits of truth in them. Some do not.

Kyle Whittingham has not forgotten how to coach. It’s fair to say his offenses in recent seasons have been neither explosive nor reliable. Quarterback play, the single most important aspect to football played at any level, has been a problem. The offensive line did betray itself at times against the Red Raiders. Utah is in search and in need of steady playmakers. Where are they?

Whittingham will take accountability for some of those shortcomings. It’s his team, his program.

But it’s unwise on the one side and unnecessary on the other to drop cliches on the coach about his ability or disability, his desire or apathy to do his job. Whittingham is as smart as he ever was and he’s as good a coach now as he’s ever been.

It’s as easy to remember the clutch comeback seasons in 2021 and 2022 when Utah won the Pac-12 and went to the Rose Bowl after losing early games as it is to recall that the Utes won their first four games last season and then flopped.

(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Utes safety Jackson Bennee (23) and Utah Utes wide receiver Ryan Davis (9) celebrate following a play against the Texas Tech Red Raiders during the game in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025.

The Utes’ troubles were evident against Texas Tech, and they are not meant to be downplayed. They have work to do, improvements to make in preparation to face the kind of competition they’ll play in the weeks ahead. That offensive front has to create space for the run game to be effective. Dampier has to be poised and accurate with his throws, and he can’t just take off running whenever he feels pressure. He’s not playing Mountain West competition, not anymore. Receivers and running backs have to get open, hit holes, make plays.

In previous games, Utah hadn’t faced a defense with the speed and strength that Tech possessed, but it will face similar resistance in at least some of the coming ones.

It’s up to Whittingham now to prove what he’s proved in the past — yeah, it’s been a while — that he can rally his team, motivating his coaches and players to rise to a level equal to or even beyond their talents, individually and collectively. The defense will do that. The offense? That’s Whittingham’s challenge. He’s gathered and motivated that group before. Will he do it again?

Beats me. I’m not Nostradamus. But it seems he can do it. He’s capable of doing it. The man’s never been a creative offensive genius — he’s not Bill Walsh — but he hasn’t shrunk into a shell of his former self. He’s not putting and sputtering along in the slow lane as the game flies by to his left. He knows the freaking game.

Watch, then, for the Utes to regroup, re-form, reunite and rebound in the days and weeks ahead. I don’t know that for a fact. I wouldn’t put money on it. I have no rooting interest one way or the other. But short of devastating injuries — Is Dampier OK? — a repeat of last season seems an unlikely course for the 2025 Utes. And for Whittingham himself.

They were beaten by a better, better-prepared, better-coached team on Saturday. There aren’t — won’t be — a whole lot of those left on their schedule. If the Utes stay relatively healthy and do what they can do, moving forward, they’ll win and win a lot. That’s the guess here.

Now, how did those rounds of fact or fiction go?